Those eyes darted back to Crispin and traveled over him efficiently like a shuttle in a loom.
“Well then?”
The man opened his mouth to speak when a sound in the corridor startled him. He whipped his head around and glared through the archway. A scowl set his mouth. Hurrying with his bundle, he dumped the wood and sticks into a box by the hearth. He wiped the loose bark and woodruff from his garments and returned to the door. Opening it a crack further, he peered out and kept a white-knuckled grip on the door. “I might find my way to earning that halpen. Meet me at Charing Cross. At Compline.”
“Can you not tell me now—”
“No time!” he rasped. “Later!” With that, he slipped out the door and threw it closed behind him.
Frustrated, Crispin glowered at the closed door. It seemed a simple question. But perhaps it was not simple at all. Yet the fact that they were in the Jews’ apartment suddenly swelled to the forefront of his thoughts. Would this not prove a good opportunity to spy?
Jack was already at the door with his hand on the ring when Crispin whirled away from it to go to the closed inner chamber he had not had the opportunity to examine before. He reached for the door’s latch when Jack was thrown aside by someone entering the room. A slender silhouette pierced the archway, a dagger in hand.
Crispin yanked Jack out of harm’s way before the door closed again and the figure made its way to the fire. “What is the meaning of this?” The voice of Julian made whole the shadowed stranger. His knife flashed in the fire’s glow. Face still in shadow, the heat glittered fiercely in his eyes.
Crispin made certain Jack was behind him. “We were speaking with a servant.”
“So I saw. Why in our rooms?”
“This is an investigation of a theft. Surely you expected me to look at your chamber.”
“You are a liar!” The blade rose but Julian made no move toward them even as he vibrated like a psaltry string. His nostrils flared.
Instinctively, Crispin raised his empty hands in appeasement, but it was only a ruse.
He lunged. One hand closed around the wrist with the knife while the other clasped Julian’s throat. He shoved the young man hard into the wall, tightening his grip on that slender throat and slamming the hand with the knife into the plaster until it fell from his fingers and clattered to the floor. Crispin heard Jack scrambling to pick it up but his eyes were solely on Julian’s face. He leaned closer, their eyes fastened on each other. Julian’s green eyes were wide as he struggled to breathe.
“You are quick with that knife, boy,” he growled into his face. “What is it you are hiding, I wonder.”
The youth gasped, his face reddening, eyes bulging. Crispin leered into his cheek. “Not so nice a thing to strangle to death, is it?”
“Master!” cried Jack behind him.
“Maybe you have something to do with the death of these boys, eh? I cannot abide a murderer. And a murderer of children. Tell me. How does it feel to be helpless?”
“Master!” Jack tugged on his coat.
Without tearing his eyes from the frightened Julian’s, Crispin sneered, “What?”
“Stop, Master. How else can he answer you?”
The arm that held the boy’s throat still throbbed from its knife wound, but Crispin could see the sense in Jack’s plea. But how he enjoyed putting that whelp in his place! He gave the trembling youth one last look, sweeping his eyes up and down his person, before he slowly released his grip on that throat. He was satisfied to see the red marks from his hands clearly visible.
Julian put a trembling hand to his neck and coughed. His eyes were still wild with panic and he slumped against the wall. “You are mad,” he choked. And then muttered words that Crispin only guessed were Hebrew.
“None of your magic, Jew. Keep your incantations to yourself.”
“It is a prayer, Gentile! I would not expect an ungodly man like yourself to recognize it as such.” He shoved Crispin aside and staggered toward the hearth, gasping.
Crispin watched him dispassionately. He wished he could drag out the Thomas of Monmouth text now and shove it the lad’s sour face.
Julian was still huffing into the fireplace. He wiped at his eyes and grabbed a straw from the mantle. He leaned in and lit the tip, cupping it in his hand as he lit a nearby candle. With the glowing straw he lit more until the shadows shied from them and flitted into the dim corners.
Julian scowled and turned to Crispin. Crispin merely sneered in reply and set about examining the alchemy on the tables in the room’s alcoves, touching anything he could, eliciting a further snarl from the livid boy.
Small burners, strange glass vessels, broken quills, scraps of parchments. There was something dark burned at the bottom of a crucible smelling of sulfur. He looked at Jack, who was still holding tight to Julian’s dagger, before he walked to the other alcove and surveyed that messy table.
More of the same. A milky glass canister held some slimy substance, and when he pulled off the glass lid, it smelled faintly of lavender.
“A poultice for soothing the nerves,” said Julian acidly. “Perhaps you should try some.”
Crispin did not answer. He strode next to the door of the mysterious inner chamber and pulled at the ring. Locked. He turned toward Julian. “Give me the key.”
The boy stiffened. “No.”
Crispin straightened his shoulders. “Perhaps you did not hear me.”
“Perhaps you did not hear me. I said no.”
It took only three strides for Crispin to grab the young man’s collar. He hauled him up to the balls of his feet. “Give me the key to that door or I shall bash your head through it.”
The boy’s lower lip trembled and his eyes suddenly glistened, but tears refused to fall. “Bâtard! Vaillant, fort chevalier!”
The words bored into Crispin’s pride. He could force his way in, yes. Even be pleased to do so should this lad prove to be a murderer. But it did not sit well with him. Technically, these Jews were his hosts. And though the son deserved his ire, the father did not.
He slowly lowered the boy and unwound his fingers from the fabric.
“You are an English brute,” Julian gasped, choking on a sob even as he raised his proud chin. “That is our private chamber. Why would I ever allow the likes of you to soil it?”
Julian wiped at the tears on his reddened face, pretending they were not there. A swath of guilt slithered up Crispin’s spine, but he would not apologize. The boy disturbed him deeply. There was something that he could not identify about the lad that put Crispin in an odd mood.
With only suspicions and without proof Crispin could not force the issue. He could not tackle the youth and snatch the key from him. Much as he wanted to.
God’s blood! He wanted the boy to be guilty. But wanting a thing did not make it so. Perhaps the answers were behind that chamber door. Or on the tongue of a servant whom he would meet at Compline. Whatever it was, he suddenly felt too close in the dark room. He drew himself up and headed steadily toward the front door. “This is not over, Master Julian.”
“Would that it were, Maître Guest.” He spit the words after Crispin, rubbing his sore neck. Crispin paused at the threshold. He looked back and felt a flutter of guilt. The lad was headstrong, to be sure. Protective of his father and of his faith. Grudgingly, Crispin recalled acting in a similar vein when he was that age.
But it didn’t mean he had to treat the boy as if he were made of glass.
“Be assured, I will be back,” said Crispin firmly. “And I will look in that room. And you will have nothing to say about it.” He yanked on the door ring. “Jack.”